As an African artist whose work engages issues of diaspora and projects multiple subject positions, Rotimi often described himself as an outsider in three distinct ways; within his African family which navigated modern Britain with a traditional spiritual identity, as a gay man in an intolerant black community, and as a black artist in a racist society:

“My identity has been constructed from my own sense of otherness, whether cultural, racial or sexual. The three aspects are not separate within me. Photography is the tool by which I feel most confident in expressing myself. It is photography therefore — Black, African, homosexual photography — which I must use not just as an instrument, but as a weapon if I am to resist attacks on my integrity and, indeed, my existence on my own terms.”